ART UNIONS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3774, 13 July 1926, Page 48

ART UNIONS.

SGAtfDALS IN MM**. (Fbo* Oub Own Cobbkbpondint.) SYDNEY, June 17. Art unions in Sydney are to be conducted voluntarily in the future. As these enterprises are usually in aid of some deserving object or other, it ought not to be difficult to find voluntary workers. If it is impossible, the public will possibly assume that some particular object or other is not so deserving as it might be. Sydney welcomes the Ministerial announcement that the Government is setting its face against the professional promoter of art unions, and, where these agenoies are allowed to operate, is insisting on the entire elimination of wages. Even the somewhat phlegmatic politicians were shocked by revelations in Parliament not long ago, showing how disproportionate in many cases was the amount realised by art unions to the expenditure incurred. While there was no question as to the bona fides of the promoters, there was the fact that most of the money subscribed by a generous public appeared to be swallowed up in expenses, and that only a comparatively small progortion of it found its way to charity. ydney is a little tired of street begging, for that is what it all amounts to. On the ferries and in the streets one finds people at all hours of the day appealing to him to buy a ticket for this or that art union. They have not always even the virtue of being charing suppliants. Often they are boys who ought to be at school or men who might conceivably be following some more dignified calling.